Derkach N. Prosodic Organization of the English Proverb: A Sociopragmatic Aspect (Experimental Phonetic Study)

This dissertation focuses on studying the peculiarities of English proverbs’ prosodic organization, called forth by such sociopragmatic factors as the communicative and pragmatic function of the proverb (those of influence, evaluation, and generalization), the situation of communication (“person-to-person”, “person – a small group of people”, “person – a large group of people”), and the speaker’s social status as compared to that of the listener (inferior, equal, superior). The contential matrix of short texts’ socially relevant and linguistic isomorphic features gives an idea of short texts’ approximation to proverbs with regard to the number of their common features. The generalized model of English proverbs’ oral actualization has facilitated the analysis and systematization of the proverb’s functional and semantic features, defining the specificity of its intonation structure from the point of view of such situational and pragmatic variables as the proverb’s emotional and pragmatic potential, its contextual meaning and functional purpose. The invariant intonation models of English proverbs, predetermined by their communicative and pragmatic functions of influence, evaluation and generalization, have been experimentally ascertained. The impact of major sociocultural factors, such as the situation of communication and the speaker’s social status, on the intonation structure of the proverbs has been defined.